The eighth child of John Thornton Augustin Washington and Elizabeth Conrad Bedinger, John Thornton Augustine Washington was born at "Berry Hill", afterwards "Cedar Lawn", Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia), January 22, 1826. Thornton Augustine Washington was educated at home under a private tutor and at the old Charlestown Academy. He graduated Princeton and was appointed by the Honorable William Lucas member of Congress from Jefferson County, Virginia, a cadet at West Point. He entered the U. S. Military Academy in June, 1845 and was graduated in June 1849. Commissioned 2nd Lt., in the 1st U.S. Inf., he went on to command the mounted escort which accompanied Maj. William Emory's 1,500 mile expedition to survey the U.S.-Mexican border from Oct. 1851 to Jan. 1852. After further service on the Texas frontier, he was promoted to 1st Lt., 1st Inf., USA in 1855, and was Assistant Instructor of Tactics, U. S. Military Academy, West Point, 1855-1856. Returning for further duty on the Texas frontier, he married in Bexar Co., Tex., March 8, 1860, Olive Ann Jones, born Sept. 8, 1839. Her father at one point was owner of nearly 175,000 acres in Texas, though this was largely lost in the wake of the Civil War. He served continuously on extreme frontier duty, with the exception of about four or five years on department and regimental staff and special detail on general recruiting service.[i], [ii]

When Virginia seceded, he resigned from the U.S. Army, April 8, 1861. He joined the Confederacy and was commissioned by President Jefferson Davis captain in the regular army of the Confederate States. As Assistant Adjutant General to General Earl Van Dorn. In March 1862, he was promoted to Major and assigned as Assistant Adjutant General to General Robert E. Lee. Later, as Lt. Colonel, CSA, "he was erecting in San Antonio an extensive tanning factory to manufacture supplies for the Confederate Army" March 1863 to Dec. 1863. He was detached from service to the Trans-Mississippi Department, where he operated in a wholly independent capacity, but where he had comparatively little opportunity too display his exceptional military abilities. At the close of the war he he made his home in Texas. He was a civil engineer and followed that profession for many years. In 1891 he was employed as examiner of he returns of he public surveys in the U. S. General Land Office, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. In 1891 he wrote and published a valuable Genealogical History of his branch of the Washington family.[i], [ii] He died July 10, 1894.

Sources:

Colonel Thornton Augustin Washington (114)

Pen and ink drawing by Thornton Augustin Washington presented to the family of his sister Mildred Berry Washington Bedinger (116), and quite possibly especially to his young niece and budding artist, Henrietta Gray (Netta) Bedinger (199). The original is now in the Griffith Family Homeplace Museum, Terrell, Texas.

A memorial to Thornton Augustin Washington, as a graduate of the West Point class of 1849, is inscribed in the following: [iii]

"Overshadowed by a great name, he was bebarred from showing the grand qualities he possessed. They were hid from himself in his great modesty, and known to the few, whom he favored with his friendship and intimacy.

"His disdain of the mean and sordid was too great and unconcealed o permit of his following the ordinary course of trade, and it is mainly due to this fact that he was persuaded to devote his intelligence and abilities to the service of the Government... His accomplishments in art and music were the delight of his friends, when he could be prevailed upon to show them."

[ii] From:Twenty-sixth Annual Reunion of the Association of the Graduates of the United States Military Academy, June 10th, 1895 inhttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Army/USMA/aog_reunions/26/thornton_a_washington*.html